


5 Times Kent Needed a Translation

by editingatwork



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5 +1 things, Angst, Bitty's Pies - Freeform, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kent Parson/OMC - Freeform, M/M, Past Kent Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: Five times Kent Parson needed someone to tell him what the hell was going on. (Plus two times he didn't.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Side note, the French is all Google Translate, the Japanese is based on my EXTREMELY RUDIMENTARY grasp of it, and apologies to the U.K. in general if I’m leaning on any stereotypes unnecessarily. Basically, I did the best I could. Suggested changes are welcome!

  1. French



“L'enfant de la graisse? Ouais, c'est Jack Zimmermann.”

Kent hears it as he skates by two of his Rimouski Océanic teammates. He’s sixteen, and they are, too. There’s something in their tones that doesn’t sound nice. He slows his skates and pretends to fiddle with his gear behind them. He hears more French, then a snort of laughter.

“L'avez-vous vu? Il est si gros. Il peut à peine patiner.” Mockery, more laughter. “S'il tombe, il pourrait briser la glace. What an embarrassment.”

Kent’s French is terrible. But the last bit is in English, and he understands that.

He clenches his fists and opens his mouth and is  _so close_  to grabbing the nearest asshole--But he stops. Because he really doesn’t know what’s being said, and  _I couldn’t understand them, but it sounded like they were talking smack about Jack_  isn’t reason enough for giving his teammate a bloody nose. And if this blows up, Kent could get suspended, or kicked off the team. And he  _needs_  this. This is his path. This is where he’s meant to be.

If he gets suspended, he can’t play hockey with Jack.

So he swallows his anger and skates away, and the next time they scrimmage within the team, he makes sure to trip and check the shit-talking fuckers as much as possible.

\--

  1. British



One year, during off-season, Kent’s clicking around the internet and sees a Facebook ad telling him to visit merry ole’ London.

 _Fuck, why not?_  Kent thinks, and books a ticket.

Seventy-two hours later, he’s in a bar down some random street in some random part of town, because Kent Parson can skate circles around burly d-men twice his size while blindfolded, but he can’t seem to make a fucking bit of sense of London’s public transit.

He’s been sipping a beer for literally thirty seconds when a Hot British Guy sits down next to him. Kent thinks he’s been recognized, but no, he’s just been spotted as a tourist.

The conversation is friendly. Kent gets into it. He likes getting to know strangers, and he likes it even better in a new country. They talk about food, sports, and the usual British-vs-American English word comparisons. Kent gets “chips” explained to him and learns to ask “Where’s the loo?” instead of inquiring about a “bathroom.”

Eventually, Kent has enough alcohol to start flirting. His companion doesn’t seem to mind. A hand ends up on Kent’s thigh and Kent turns so their knees touch. It feels really good to be here, in a country where people know him even less than they do in the States.

Then Kent gets sick of waiting and decides, again,  _Fuck, why not?_ and goes in for a kiss. He is met with enthusiasm and a lot of tongue.

When they pull away, the guy is grinning, lips wet and red. He slides off the stool. “Grab your coat, love, you’ve pulled.”

Kent replays the words in his head and stares at the guy for an awkwardly long time. Long enough that Hot British Guy wilts a bit. “Er, unless I read that wrong? Sorry, if you wanna just stay and talk--”

“What do you mean, I’ve ‘pulled’?”

The guy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh! Oh, it’s slang. It means making out or hooking up. If you get someone to agree to go home with you, you’ve ‘pulled’ them.”

“Oh.” Kent slides off his stool and pulls out his wallet to pay for his tab. “In that case.”

The guy grins.

\--

  1. Japanese



Ryuunosuke “Finch” Fylan is fresh out of the draft and excited as all hell to be on the Las Vegas Aces. He takes to the team, and hockey, like a duck to water, and the team takes to him in the same vein.

Finch has dual citizenship with America and Japan, where he’s been living for most of his life. He’s essentially fluent in English, having learned it at home and in various international schools, which he attended until high school. He’s a python on the ice, sleek and dangerous. Off the ice, he’s like a puppy. This comparison is voted on unanimously by the team during their first team dinner.

They go to a hibachi grill, because why not.

“We don’t actually have these in Japan,” Finch says. He’s got a row of sauce dishes lined up in front of him. “I mean, we have hibachi, but it’s not a type of restaurant.”

From down the table, one of the guys says, “Wait, so this  _isn’t_  authentic Japanese cooking?”

Finch waves his hands. “Yes and no? I mean, the hibachi is a real thing, but it’s a heating device. It’s not usually used to cook food. This is more like...teppanyaki.”

“My whole life is a lie,” someone mutters, and Finch laughs.

Despite the apparent falseness of their food, it’s really delicious, and the whole team--Finch included--enjoys the show of it all being cooked. Their chef is American but was trained in Japan, and speaks a good amount of Japanese. She and Finch chatter away. The team stops trying to interject once they all notice the brighter-than-usual smiles on Finch and the chef’s faces.

Kent’s sitting right next to Finch. He’s fine ignoring the Japanese conversation in favor of his shrimp, when he hears something that almost makes him spit out his food.

“Ehhh? Bukkake ga daisuki!”

Kent’s fork slips through his fingers and clatters to the floor. He  _cannot_  have heard that right.

“Ah, oishii desu! Bukkake udon suki desu ka?”

“Hai, suki. Bukkake soba mo suki.”

On Kent’s other side, he hears Swoops mutter, “What the  _fuck?”_ and he knows it’s not just him.

Once he’s choked down his shrimp, he elbows Finch and says, “Kid. What the fuck are you two talking about?”

Finch and the chef blink at him, bewildered. Finch says, “Um. Food? Like what kind of noodles we like.”

Swoops leans across Kent. “Dude. I swear I just heard you say...” He trails off.

“We’re not gonna be assholes if you’re, like, into... weird sex shit,” Kent says. “Just, maybe don’t talk about it in public.”

The chef gets it first. “Bukkake,” she says. Swoops actually  _does_  spit out his drink. “In Japan, bukkake is a type of dish where the soup is poured over the noodles. It has basically no kinky sex connotations.”

Most of the people listening--save Finch--are some shade of red from hearing ‘bukkake’ so many times out loud in public. Finch has his face down on the counter and his shoulders are shaking with laughter.

That is, until the chef says something to him in Japanese, and his head shoots up.

“H-hontou?” he sputters. His cheeks have gone pink.

She smiles at him.

Finch’s shocked expression smooths into a bright smile. “Naru hodo!”

Kent reaches for a new fork to replace the one he’d dropped on the floor. “I no longer want to know what either of you are saying.”

\--

  1. Jack



Kent gets out of his car and heads towards the little suburban home ready to feel awkward as fuck. He’s been invited to Jack’s (and Jack’s boyfriend’s) 4th of July barbecue. When the invite came via text, it shocked him so much he almost walked into a lamppost. Prior to  _hey, bits and i are having a 4th of july bbq next weekend. will u come?_ , he and Jack had exchanged a few uncomfortably stilted words and sentences on Twitter DMs, and then on their phones after exchanging numbers for the first time in years.

Then, out of the blue, this invite. To Jack’s  _home_. For a barbecue with  _Jack_  and  _Jack’s boyfriend_  and  _all of Jack and Jack’s boyfriend’s friends_.

Kent’s nervous as shit.

Jack told him to skip ringing the doorbell and “just come around back,” so that’s what Kent does. There are tons of people there. Some, he recognizes vaguely from the times he dropped by Samwell; some are Falconers and their family; and others are just plain strangers. There’s beer and music and the smell of hotdogs and burgers, and a damn picnic table filled with potluck offerings. Kent stuffs his empty hands in his pockets and tries to merge with the crowd.

It doesn’t work.

“Kent-motherfucking-Parson!”

“Yo, Shitty.” It’s been a couple years, but the guy hasn’t lost the trademark mustache or found time to wear a shirt. The name is impossible to forget. They bump fists and Shitty says, “You want a beer?”

“Yeah, man.”

Being there isn’t at all the nightmare that Kent had envisioned. People know him, of course, this being NHL-goddamn- _central_ , but all it means is that he doesn’t have to deal with a lot of well-intentioned small-talk that forces him to answer the same questions over and over. People just say, “Oh, Kent!” and talk to him. He knows most of the Falcs by name and face but he’s hardly met all their WAGS and kids.

There are a shocking number of kids at this thing. Kent gets talked into putting one of the littler ones on his shoulders and twenty minutes later has to escape a gaggle that’s still trying to use him as a work mule.

Eventually, the inevitable. Jack.

“Kenny. Hey, there you are.” Jack looks sheepish and beautifully domestic, a blue Falconers apron (of course) pulled over his SMH t-shirt and basketball shorts. He’s got a bit of a five o’clock shadow and a ballcap pulled on. He looks like an overgrown stay-at-home dad, like he should be kissing his husband on the cheek and calling “Have a good day at work, dear!” while the kids clamor for breakfast in the background.

And hell, Kent realizes. Jack just bought a  _house_. It sure looks like he’s settling down for  _something_.

“Zimms. Hi.” The nickname feels weird in his mouth. “Thanks for inviting me. This party’s great.”

“Thanks for coming,” Jack replies. Kent’s startled to see that Jack really means it. Jack has a spatula in one hand and he waves it back towards the grill. “Did you get a burger yet?”

“Yeah, but I’ll eat another.”

“I’ve got some about to come off the grill.”

So Kent ends up standing next to the grill watching Jack flip burgers in his fucking Falconers apron in his backyard of his little suburban home. It’s surreal.

“Did you always know how to cook?” he asks. It isn’t quiet out here by a long shot but he’s always nervous about silence between him and Jack, even when he knows it’s comfortable.

A smile pulls at the side of Jack’s mouth. “Some. I got better after I joined the team. A lot of the guys live alone or do the cooking at home for their families, and they gave me some pointers. And Bits helped me.”

Kent swallows the hurt that threatens to make him a jackass and says, “He sounds like a good guy.”

Jack checks over his shoulders. “He’s around somewhere. I know you guys already kinda met, but I’ll introduce you again when I find him.”

Jack’s acting like this is normal. Like Kent being here among Jack’s friends, like Jack introducing Kent to his boyfriend, like Jack standing here flipping burgers and chatting with Kent like they’re--like they’re actually--

“Are we okay?” Kent blurts, and fuck.

Jack looks at him, eyes gone wide. “What?”

Kent figures he’s all in. “It’s just, what the hell, Jack? The last time I saw you out of a hockey sweater was three years ago at a house party, and then after like five texts you’re inviting me over for burgers? Not that I don’t wanna be here. I fucking do.” He wants to be here more than anything else he’s ever wanted, maybe including the Stanley Cup. “Just. It’s zero to a hundred miles an hour, here. Does this--are we cool? Are we  _friends_?”

Jack stares at him for so long that Kent starts to feel like he’s going to drop dead of his heart beating so fast.

“I don’t think we’re friends,” Jack says eventually. “But I don’t want us to be enemies. I don’t want to hate you anymore. I want to…try.”

Kent grabs a plate and a bun because it gives him something to do. “Okay. Good. That--I want that, too.”

Jack’s smile grows. He slips the spatula under a steaming patty and puts it on Kent’s hamburger bun. “Good.”

\--

  1. Russian



Alexei Mashkov is fresh in from Russia and his English is shit, but his kisses are gold.

They hook up, irresponsibly, on an Aces roadie during their first season. Kent’s eighteen, Alexei nineteen, both of them riding the exhilaration of being drafted and feeling the encroaching reality of being closeted queers thrust into the public eye. They start as friends who room together and stay up too late watching movies, who talk in Google Translate and hand gestures, and who get into ill-advised pillow fights. (They’re both young but they’re still overpowered hockey boys, and the busted hotel pillows aren’t gonna pay for themselves. There’s also a cleaning fee.)

And then one night, in the middle of a tickle-fight-turned-wrestling-match, Kent finds himself pinned under Alexei Mashkov and just… leans up.

Alexei meets him with a moan and Kent’s gone. He’s eighteen and perpetually horny, but more than that, he’s twisted up inside, every goddamn day. Every day Jack won’t return his calls, every day he has to get updates on Jack’s health from goddamn sports channels and newspapers, it tears him up a little more. Alexei makes him feel warm and unbound, like maybe he could sink into something pure and uncomplicated for a while.

Alexei’s kissing him, he’s rolling his hips into Kent and petting his hair, moaning softly all the while. He’s big and heavy, a bit like Jack, but the way he links his fingers with Kent’s is totally new. It’s the gentlest heartbreak Kent’s ever felt.

And then Alexei pulls back and says, “No.”

Kent gapes at him. “No? No what, no tongue? No hands? What?”

Alexei lets go of Kent’s hands and rolls off him. “No.”

Kent’s cold all down his body, where seconds ago Alexei was melting him. “What—Why?” He wants to be angry but he’s just empty. He doesn’t have any room left to feel the loss of another boy.

“I’m—We can’t.” A pause. “Is because hockey.”

“You think this’ll affect our teamwork on the ice?” Kent tries to mime using a hockey stick. He reaches for Alexei. “It won’t. I promise.”

Alexei looks confused by Kent’s words and frustrated about his own for a long minute. Then he grabs his phone off the nightstand, texts something in it, and then holds it out for Kent to read.

It’s Google Translate, doing its best to interpret Alexei’s Russian into something Kent can understand.

_I want to, but if someone hears us, or find out ..._

Is  _that_  all? Kent shoves himself upright. “We’ll be quiet. Quiet,” he emphasizes, putting a finger to his lips. “Nobody will hear!”

Alexei’s frown says he doesn’t understand.

“Give me that?” Kent asks, and takes the phone. He punches in his own words, translating the text into Russian.

**Nobody will hear!**

Alexei reads it and shakes his head.

_Maybe they do not. Maybe they do. We recruits. If someone knows, that can ruin your career._

Kent grinds his teeth.

**We don’t have to play by their rules. If someone finds out, so what? Nothing’s gonna happen, Alexei.**

The look Alexei gives him is pitying.

_We do not know that. There has never been a gay hockey player before._

**Well maybe there should be. Someone has to be first, to be brave enough to just say ‘fuck them’ and come out.**

And hell, Kent’s never given it any thought before, but maybe that should be him. He almost  _wants_  it to be. What’s the press going to do, crucify him? Let them fucking try. Kent’s spent so much time watching Jack fight things Kent couldn’t battle for him—addiction, depression, anxiety, the expectation of the Zimmermann legacy—that Kent  _burns_  for something to tear to shreds.

Maybe it shows on his face. Alexei sighs.

_Yes. Someone has to come out. I want someday. There are so many people who are in need of a role model. Someone they can look up to. Someone who can help them to play hockey, and feel less fearful._

_But we are not hockey stars. We recruits. If we came out, we're not a role model. We probably just become big trouble for the team and get fired._

_Kent, NHL is my dream. And I cannot go back to Russia. I cannot._

_Sorry. You're beautiful, and funny, and I want you so much. But I cannot. Please forgive me._

Kent wipes his eyes because he didn’t cry over Jack Zimmermann and he won’t cry now.

Alexei doesn’t touch him.

“Okay,” he says. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexei says, his voice as small as Kent feels.

“I understand.” Kent pulls him into a hug because he looks like he needs it, and maybe Kent needs it, too.

\--

+1 Hockey

Is it possible to develop a second native language after already learning your first?

To Kent, that’s what hockey is. His feet know the glide of ice beneath his skates like his tongue knows the shape and feel of “hello.” His hands know the weight of a stick like his voice knows that a rise in intonation at the end of “okay” makes it a question, not a response. His ears know the sound of a puck hitting pipe better than they know his own name.

He learned “apple” and “dog” and “mama” first, but the difference is that spoken conversation is fraught with misunderstood intent and tone and meaning, while in hockey, he comprehends an opposing team’s play before it’s halfway through, just by looking.

There’s no mystery in hockey. There’s doubt, and fear, and pain, and defeat, but there’s no mystery. There’s ice, a puck, Kent’s stick, and his team. The ways from A to B are clear as a summer sky.

When Kent’s six and he has to start walking five blocks to school every morning with Aunt Cathy because mama’s car was “repossessed,” he doesn’t understand. But when he feels his hockey stick scrape across the ice and sling his puck into his first goal in a pee-wee game, he understands. When Aisha Henderson dumps him in tenth grade for Sam Collins, who has better hair and newer clothes but manhandles her in a way that makes her smile dim, he doesn’t understand. But when he’s drafted into the Quebec Major Junior League and comes back from his first official practice so tired he can barely stand, he understands.

When Jack smiles in public and cries in his room, Kent doesn’t understand. When Jack kisses him and touches him like he loves him but yells at him for trying to talk about the pills, he doesn’t understand. When he loves Jack every way he can but Jack overdoses and then shuts him out for seven years, Kent cries and drinks and sleeps around and gets a cat and learns to cook and reads books about anxiety and depression and survivor’s guilt, and… starts to understand, a little.

But it takes him so long to get there.

He’s never had to try to understand hockey.

Winning the Stanley Cup comes as a shock. Not because Kent didn’t see the last point go in off Sunny’s stick; not because he’d gotten elbowed in the face in the second period and was starting to feel himself get a bit dizzy; not because he thought the Aces’ successful plays all thought the playoffs and into the Stanley finals were the result of good luck and miracles instead of hard work, good teamwork, and a thorough understanding of the game; but because it’s so sudden. After several seasons of dogged forward momentum, of losing and winning and losing and then winning, winning, winning, the Stanley win slams into Kent like a truck at a crosswalk.

He gets lost in a pile of wildly celebrating teammates and thinks, _I need to touch the Stanley Cup, and then I probably need a doctor._

The cup is lighter and heavier than he thinks it’ll be. He hoists it over his head and does a mini victory lap and comes back to grown men with red eyes and tears in their beards. Kent lowers the cup and Swoops wraps him up in a fierce hug. The other guys—rookies, vets, the lot—join Swoops in clinging to Kent. Nobody says anything, but Kent feels some of them shaking with emotion, feels the combined weight of their bodies and their gear, feels hands pressed against his own still holding the Stanley Cup, and he understands.

He understands.

\--

+2 Tater

It’s not a surprise that Kent runs into Tater at Jack and Bitty’s Fourth of July barbecue. The surprise is that he didn’t run into him _sooner_.

The sun has nearly set and Kent’s lounging around near the side of the house with a beer. He’s trying not to watch Jack and Bitty through the bay windows, where the kitchen light makes it easy to see them washing and stacking dishes. They orbit each other like a sun and a moon, and are so stupidly in love it’s almost embarrassing to watch.

They’re good together. Kent has grown up enough to admit that. Bitty’s good for Jack, and Jack’s good for Bitty. He might be better for Bitty than he ever was for Kent.

“Kent Parson!” calls a voice for the fiftieth time that day, and probably the sixth time in some kind of Slavic accent. Kent doesn’t know what he’s turning towards and when he does, he has exactly three seconds to see who it is before giant hockey arms lift him off his feet.

“I’m not know you going to be here!”

 _Me neither, five days ago,_ Kent thinks. “You know me, I like to make an entrance. Dude, you’re gonna crack something,” he protests, when Tater laughs and his arms tighten. The tectonic shake of Tater’s body mid-chuckle makes Kent laugh, too. “Put me down!”

Tater swings him around once and then does. It’s a miracle that Kent didn’t spill his beer.

“When you get here?” Tater asks. He retrieves his own beer from the ground, having apparently put it down so he could get the drop on Kent.

“Couple hours ago. You?”

Tater laughs. “I have been here all day! How I’m miss you?”

Kent shrugs. “Don’t know.” He leans back against the house again and watches the last streaks of light fade away. “There’s a lot of people here, I guess.”

Tater takes a swig of beer. “Always a lot of people. Every year, party get bigger.”

Kent wouldn’t know. “First one I’ve been to.” He states it as fact, sans bitterness. Because he’s not bitter. To be bitter, he’d have to have felt entitled to Jack’s life before now, and he didn’t. Not even when the sting of rejection was new, had he ever felt entitled to Jack. “Do different people host it every year?”

“Usually Thirdy or Marty, or other old guys with families and houses. Is Jack’s first year.” He grins like a proud parent.

Kent raps his knuckles against the grey siding. “It’s a nice house. I’m happy for him.”

Tater snorts. “Is about time. Although I’m tell him, he is doing it out of order. Propose to boyfriend _first_ , get married _first_ , then buy house.”

Kent nods and sips his beer. “Yeah.”

Jack hasn’t come out. The public don’t know about Bitty. It’s another reason Kent was scared shitless to come here: it’s obvious that the only people who were invited were people that Jack and Bitty could trust.

Kent knowing about Bitty because Jack had explicitly told him—for the sake of drawing that line in the sand during one of their first text conversations—had been one thing. To be invited to a gathering that essentially was only for _family_ …

Just because he and Jack talked about it doesn’t mean Kent fully understands what he’s doing here.

“Oh, I’m forget,” Tater says. “Is your birthday. How old you this year, grandpa?”

“Twenty-seven, which makes you twenty-fucking-eight, you _geezer_.” Kent jabs him in the side with his elbow and it just makes him laugh. “You’re almost thirty. When are you gonna settle down with a picket fence and two-point-five kids, huh? Clock’s ticking, tick-tock.”

“I’m having time. What about you? You in same apartment from when I still play for Aces. Still have same _cat_.”

“Excuse you, my cat is a queen. She’s got more Instagram followers than _me_.”

“Is because cat is better looking.”

“You better fucking believe it.”

Tater laughs. Kent laughs. They drink their beers. The sky is fully dark and people are starting to drag lawn chairs and blankets out to prepare for the fireworks. There’s a high school not two streets over from Jack’s new house, and Kent’s been told by several people that the school’s fireworks display can be seen throughout most of the neighborhood.

“You want get blanket or chairs?” Tater asks.

Kent’s about to say no, but he’s been on his feet most of the day. “Yeah, why not.”

There’s a pile of folded tarps and blankets on the back porch. Bitty is distributing them to anyone who didn’t bring their own or wants extras. He’s been warm to Kent all day, with a bit of steel underneath. Kent gets the feeling that Bitty genuinely wants Kent and Jack to repair their friendship, but he’d also stab Kent with one of the serving forks if Kent said any of the shit he did at the Haus three years ago. Bitty’s warm and good-hearted and loves Jack more than he’s wary of Kent, but Kent sees it in his eyes: he remembers.

“Enjoy the fireworks!” Bitty tells him and Tater, handing them a tarp and a blanket. “And please, help yourself to the buffet table, it’s still piled pretty high. I know y’all are in off-season but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to eat.”

“I’m hate off-season,” Tater replies. “Means I’m less hungry, can’t eat as much pie.”

Bitty laughs. “Lucky for you I make pie all year round. And you know you’re welcome ‘round here whenever you like. You too, Kent.” The inclusion of his name gives Kent a start. Bitty meets his eyes and says, “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” Kent says. “Thanks. The pie _was_ really good. Better than anything I’ve had in Vegas.”

Bitty purses his lips like he’s trying to crush a grin that’s threatening. “Keep sweet-talking like that, I might find it in my heart to air-mail you one.”

The grassy yard is full of blankets, lawn chairs, and children screaming while chasing each other with sparklers. It makes the place look like it’s full of burning fireflies. Tater and Kent manage to find a spot somewhere off to the side that’s not as likely to be trampled under small feet.

“I can’t remember the last time I watched fireworks from somebody’s backyard,” Kent says as he flops down. “Vegas always has about a hundred displays going on all week. I always see two or three from my balcony. I haven’t had to actually go to a Fourth of July party in years. Just birthday bar-crawls.”

“Is one better?” Tater asks. The blanket is long but not broad. Tater’s warm shoulders brush Kent’s. “Backyard or balcony?”

Kent thinks about it. “Not really. Just different. Like, it’s nice to see the whole show from my own home, not having to worry about whether I’ve got any pants on.”

Tater guffaws.

“But like, this? This is nice. The kids and the blankets and the potato salad. It’s… low-key. Chill. Nothing to do but lie back, get bitten by mosquitoes, and watch some amateur fireworks. It’s nice.”

“Company is better, too.”

“I thought we covered this, my cat is better than everyone.”

“Cat is better than _you_. Not better than me.”

“You wish.”

With a flash and a boom, the fireworks begin, and Kent is saved from having to noogie Tater for the sin of dragging Kent’s cat.

Rockets spiral up and burst into fiery streaks of color, some small and loud, others loud and crackling with glitter. There are only about six different types of fireworks being used, which makes the display repetitive after a while, but Kent is still enjoying it more than he would have in Vegas. With each new explosion, the scattered children shriek and laugh, and amidst them are the subdued “Oooh” and “Ahhh” of the adults. There’s a rock poking into his back but not hard enough to make him want to move, just enough to keep him aware. He can smell gunpowder and Tater’s aftershave. His retinas are layered with afterimages of the fireworks, but he doesn’t look away. He grins, and watches.

“This is pretty good,” he says. “For a high school outfit, this is really good.”

“Is beautiful.”

“Yeah. They’re beautiful.”

Tater hums. “Kent.”

“Yeah?” When Tater doesn’t say anything further, Kent turns to look at him. Tater’s eyes are brown, but the look black in the flickering light.

“Beautiful,” Tater says again, and he’s looking directly at Kent. “I’m always think so.”

The bottom drops out of Kent’s stomach, even as his heart skips a beat.

Tater cautiously touches his fingers to Kent’s. He doesn’t look away.

Kent spreads his fingers and tangles them with Tater’s.

He understands.

**Author's Note:**

> Join me in the rarepair trash heap on [tumblr](http://punmasterkentparson.tumblr.com/)


End file.
